Buffy The Vampire Slayer

Years ago I saw a pretty crap film where some girl kills vampires. I had watched the odd episode of Buffy and Angel before, thought they were good but never really got into it that much, mainly due to missing huge parts of the story out (we only have the BBC to blame for this, who's scheduling of the show is bizarre and frustrating to say the least). I have played the Xbox game, which I thought was great. But I had never really totally got into Buffy before, until recently when I picked up all of the DVD box sets and started to watch them through.

For all of you who know nothing or little of Buffy, it is a popular television series based on the character in the movie of the same title. The series begins shortly after the film had left off. Now Buffy (Sarah Michelle Geller) Summers, with her recently divorced mother, have moved to Sunnydale to start life anew. Expelled from her school in the San Fernando Valley for tearing the Gymnasium up (a thankless reward for saving everybody from a Vampire feeding frenzy), Buffy wants to start over with a normal life and meet new friends. She is soon to learn that destiny will not allow that, for fate has brought Buffy to a Hell Mouth, a gateway between our world and the demon dimension, and Sunnydale is Vampire heaven.

Her first acquaintance is with Cordelia Chase (Charisma Carpenter, in the role Sarah Michelle first auditioned for) the clique-y social leader of the trendy in-crowd at Sunnydale High, who tells her friends: "--when I go shopping I buy the most expensive things, not because they are expensive but because they cost more." However Buffy establishes closer friendships with Willow Rosenberg (Alyson Hannigan), a shy wall flower shunned by Cordelia and the school's brain child, and Xander (Nicholas Brendon), Willow's friend since their early youth, also regarded by Cordelia as a "looser".

Rupert Giles is the school librarian. He is planted there by the Watcher's Council to be Buffy's new watcher. It is from him she learns of the Hell Mouth and that her destiny is inescapable. Buffy and Giles, with Willow and Xander (later joined by Cordelia) become the crew nicknamed the Scooby Gang. Episode by Episode these individuals and their relationships grow to a closer bond as well as personal strength.

Then there is Angel, a mysterious, dark, brooding stranger who comes to Buffy occasionally with bits of helpful information. She describes him as being "kind of cute in a creepy way". It is later revealed that Angel is a Vampire, but unlike the others, he has a soul, thrown upon him by gypsies as punishment for destroying one of their favorites. Angel's own existence is a turmoil of the inner struggle of the demon within and his higher being, the soul.

As in life, this series has undergone changes for each passing situation. Persons have died or suffered great traumas. Stronger resolves are made in the face of adversity. I will try to synopsize some of the past seasons to bring us to date with the series.

The first year establishes the series and challenges. The Hell Mouth's location is discovered and Buffy has to defeat the Master, who is imprisoned at the Hell Mouth, has loyal minions headed by a large brute vampire named Luke and Darla (Julie Benz, later to appear on "Angel" as the same character), it is their task to delegate his evil plans until he can be released. In this series when a Vampire is staked it first turns to dust and then vaporizes. Saves the problem of explaining to the authorities why all the bodies. Luke is dusted in the second episode and after Buffy learns that Angel is a Vampire she gains trust in him when he destroys Darla in Buffy's defense (it is Darla who sired Angel from mortal to Vampire).

Before Buffy can defeat the Master she is killed by him, pushing here face in a puddle and drowning her,but it is loyal Scooby pal Xander who comes to her in time to administer CPR and Buffy is revived to complete her job. This also calls up a new slayer as Buffy was technically dead though for only a minute. The new slayer is Kendra, a lovely light skin woman of African decent who comes from an unspecified area in the Dominican.

In season two, she joins forces with Buffy to battle against her new arch foes Spike (James Marsters) a Vampire notorious for killing two previous slayers and Drusilla (Juliet Landau,who appeared in Ed Wood), also notoriously evil and quite insane even by Vampire standards. She was driven mad by Angel a century and a half prior when he destroyed her entire family before he sired her to the undead. Drusilla was the gypsy girl for whom Angel was cursed with the restoration of his soul. His conscience now compels him to pity her.

Buffy and Angel are ill-fated to fall in love and it is this love that brings them to an intimate interlude which banishes his curse for if he ever knew but a moment of happiness he would again lose his soul. The demon in Angel is once more unbridled and Angel joins forces with Spike and Drusilla against Buffy. The undead three plot to bring the end of the world by releasing a demon from a stone prison who would swallow all mortals into hell. But they need Giles knowledge to work the spell and he is kidnapped by Angel's minions, killing Kendra in the attack. To rescue Giles and prevent the demon's release, Buffy conspires with Spike who wants to get Drusilla away from Angel. At the same time Willow, now dabbling in the Black Arts is working the ancient spell to restore Angel's soul as a back-up plan. Buffy saves Giles and Spike escapes with Drusilla, but not before the demon is released. Now to reverse this next danger she has to run Angel through at the same time she stabs the demon with an enchanted sword so that Angels blood mixes with the demon. At that moment Willows spell kicks in, Angel's soul is restored and Buffy sees in him the man that she loves. Sorrowfully, she must now destroy him anyway to save the world from it's end. "Good bye, my darling" she tearfully says and runs him through with the sword. The demon's mouth closes and it returns to hell taking Angel with it.

Morally crushed Buffy leaves Sunnydale. Her friends and mother do not know what has become of her.

This brings up season three. Buffy's encounter with more evil activity in another town is a wake up call to her and she returns to Sunnydale to resume her responsibility of fighting evil. Her efforts a hampered by the new Principal, Snyder. By some magic of love, Angel is brought back from hell and he wants to again help Buffy, though they have to face the difficulty of not giving in to their desires. Buffy is now joined by a new slayer named Faith (Eliza Dushka) who has bad girl ways and enjoys killing a bit more than Buffy is comfortable with. Soon Faith kills a human by accident but has now remorse for it. Faith then goes over to the dark forces and works for the Mayor of Sunnydale, Richard Wilkins, a demon worshipper who aspires to become a demon himself.

Season Three finishes with a big bang when the graduating class of Sunnydale High join with Buffy and friends to defeat the Mayor who transforms into a serpent demon right before the whole class at the ceremony. Victory goes to the good guys once more. Now with this task finished Angel leaves Buffy to go and fight for his own redemption which brings up the spin-off show "Angel" which has aired along side Buffy since Season Four.

Season Four and Five find Buffy in College trying to balance higher education with her crusade against the dark forces. For a while she joins a Government military project called the Initiative which capture demons and Vampires alive and experiment on them. Spike himself, who has returned to Sunnydale with a chip on his shoulder, is captured by the Initiative and gets a computer chip planted in his head which appears to render him unable to harm humans. We later learn that the Initiative's intent is to use demons in warfare situations. They have even created their own Frankenstein monster(in more ways than one) called Adam who escapes to become the new super arch foe against Buffy and friends.

Well for those who have yet to see the program I have brought you near to up to date. In closing I will say that over these past seasons, Buffy has become a seriously intense as well as very entertaining series providing chills, thrills, romance and high action framed in some very intricate plots and tight fitting character relationships as well as a terrific spin-off show which I also hope to review for you. As somebody who previously only saw the odd episode or two I must recommend getting the box sets and watching from the start, there is so much to take in that to fully appreciate the programme you need to have seen every episode in the correct order to really grasp what it is about, and to get the little in-jokes and amazing continuanity the show has. So go buy them.

Having recently watched every goddamn episode of Buffy and the vast majority of Angel I have to say that my favour is tipping towards Buffy. I don't really know why though. I think its probably the characterisation (and Alyson Hannigan )

Angel got really really awful at the end of Season 4 and was painful to watch at times. But overall I prefer it to Buffy. Angel also has the best theme tune out of the two and stars Charisma Carpenter* which is always a good thing.***spoiler***At least it did until Joss Whedon wrote her out the git

I've recently made it to the end of S3, and I've failed to understand what all the fuss is about. There's some witty writing, some good characters and some good episodes. I've mostly enjoyed it, but I'm not sure whether I can be bothered to persevere, especially as I've been led to believe that S2 and S3 were the high points for the show. Maybe you need to be the same age as the characters to really buy into it.

I agree with mediadave I do think season 4 was the best written series but overall I enjoy season 2 followed by 3 the most, season 2 just shows you what a fantastic show it is and what is to come for the future and you know it's something special.

I'd buy that. I was always the same-ish age as buffy, went to uni a year later than her! Then again, my mum really like it. Though to be honest, my mum tends to like whatever american drama I force her to watch (though she is really now into the West Wing). My dad won't even give them a chance. Doesn't know what he's missing!